


How Humans Sleep: A Guide

by AngeNoir



Series: Write-Away Giveaway Fills on Tumblr [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (in a way), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Finale, Post Season/Series 08 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:25:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are more vivid than Castiel expected, living life as a human. Dreams are one of them. Sam offers to stick around so that it's easier for Castiel to fall back asleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Humans Sleep: A Guide

**Author's Note:**

> As a celebration for reaching 100 followers on tumblr, I held a giveaway, and what I gave away is prompt fills for anyone who asks! I received this prompt from [chiazu](http://chiazu.tumblr.com):
> 
> _Sastiel, h/c, sleeping, and GO!_
> 
> I WILL SAY THIS: the last episode I watched was the French Mistake, back in season 6. I have been unable to keep up with the seasons. Therefore, this is going to be a bit (or a lot) OOC for the season, and there are (most likely) probably going to be mistakes in details. If you let me know, I can correct them!

In the Bunker, Sam had come to think of the place as – not home, because home would always bring up memories of the hot sun on black leather interior, of sweaty arms sticking to the seats and head lolling as he listened to Dean’s rough voice croon out Metallica lyrics. But close to home, in a way that very few other places could be. It was safe, permanent, and for a man (boy) seeking permanence in a transient lifestyle, the solid walls and wealth of knowledge spread around him was the best gift he could have ever asked for.

Even now, weakened after the incomplete third trial, the weight of it still in his veins, making him slow to move and respond, he took comfort in the soft lighting, the wooden tables, the signs of someone having lived in the place and cared for it warming his soul.

…And he was a lot more poetic than he intended to be. Then again, that was most likely due to the fact that he felt like he was going to pass out any minute now – but any time he had curled up to sleep, he’d had horrific nightmares.

It was silent in the Bunker, mostly because Dean had gone to replenish their supplies. Not wanting to shop and be seen in the city where the Bunker was actually located, Dean had decided to drive three towns over and find one of those twenty-four hours places, picking up food and some simple necessities like toiletries.

When a sound came from one of the rooms, it took Sam a few moments to process it, and then he was shakily moving to his feet, gripping a small knife, and hoping that he really didn’t have to try and defend himself from someone; as it was, he’d be lucky if he’d manage to sneak up on them without them noticing, let alone being able to take anyone down, with how he was feeling.

He peered into one of the spare bedrooms to see – ah. Right.

Castiel was standing, leaning a bit on the wall, an indentation on the bed where someone had previously been lying. He was trembling a little, and looked very, very lost.

Dean had found Castiel – or perhaps, more accurately, Castiel had found Dean – and Dean had brought the angel back to the Bunker. Apparently, Cas was completely human now, and was still having some weird reactions to actually being a human being. Watching Cas figure out that a hot stove was hot, and that cold water was actually cold, and that humans blistered when lightly burned, had been both the most terrifying and the most hilarious moment of Sam’s life this past week (the times that he’d been conscious and aware, bundled up in a blanket in a chair, watching Dean and Cas interact). Dean had been overly nervous, like a mother hen with a baby chick that was ill, but all Sam could see was Cas, who knew more about human nature and human cultures than anyone else, and yet still worked at making Dean laugh and making Dean feel needed. While, yeah, Cas probably had just been careless and forgotten that the stove had been turned on when he went to lean back against the counter, hand close to the metal coil, Cas certainly had watched humans enough to have some basic understanding of first aid. Cas had watched _them_ enough to have a good grasp on first aid. He’d known that to fix burns, you used cold water, but he’d let Dean do it, and then let Dean wrap his hand with bandages.

“You okay, Cas?” he asked, placing the knife on the dresser and pushing the door open a bit more, trying not to stumble himself or shiver so hard that he made the door rattle. Castiel looked… spooked.

Castiel turned to look at Sam, and Cas looked highly uncertain – a new look that Sam wasn’t sure he was comfortable with seeing on Cas’s face. He wasn’t certain what had taken Cas’s grace away, only that it had been. Cas had told the story, of course (or, more accurately, Dean had dragged the story from Cas’s reluctant lips as the angel had huddled, dripping wet from the rainstorm outside, in one of the chairs when Dean had first found Cas) but Sam had not been his most lucid. Even now, he felt light-headed and weak, the pain of the trial crawling through his veins. But this was Cas, their friend and ally, a Winchester in all but name. If he could help Cas, he would.

“I am… fine,” Cas said slowly, dragging the words out in an almost painful manner. “I just – I know humans dream,” he said, words suddenly coming in a rush. “I just – never realized the intensity mortals had when they did so. How… vivid, and painful, such actions can be. It is almost as if it were really happening again.”

Sam smiled, a little bitterly. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.”

Cas licked his lips and stared at the bed. After a long moment, Sam knew that he was going to need to sit down or fall down, and he didn’t want to leave Cas alone, because…

Well. Because. Winchesters didn’t talk about emotions, not really. They came at it from the side, they said the obscure and left the obvious unstated, they refused to look anything in the eye that could backfire on them. And Sam had been burned more than once, whenever he opened up and let himself… feel.

But he still didn’t want to leave Cas alone. And he was tired, himself. He’d woken up from bad dreams of his own, not wanting to be alone, and willing to stay awake until Dean came back so that he’d have company and background noise while he dozed off again. Cas could help him, and maybe… maybe he could help Cas.

“You could… lie back down. And I could sit in that chair,” Sam offered. “Sometimes it helps if you have someone nearby. Don’t have that many bad dreams.”

Cas looked at him suspiciously, as if he couldn’t believe Sam was telling the truth or as if he was trying to make out Sam’s features in the gloom – Sam couldn’t tell which. Finally, he nodded. “That is an acceptable idea,” he finally said. “Dean told me to get some rest.”

“Dean’s normally right about those kind of things,” Sam murmured, moving over to the chair that was near the bed, trying to make himself comfortable in it as Cas laid down on top of the bed.

Sam bit his tongue. Cas still had that trench coat on, his shoes, everything, and was lying as still and stiff as a board. “Dude, there’s no way you’d be able to sleep like that,” he said finally, after two minutes had gone by and Cas had barely blinked.

Cas turned his head to look at Sam.

Feeling foolish, Sam waved a hand at the bed. “You’re too tense, Cas. You need to – relax. And maybe not be wearing the coat and shoes, at least. Get under the covers.”

For a long moment, Cas just stared at Sam, and then he swallowed. “What are you going to do in that chair?”

“What? Uh – ” Sam didn’t know what to say – the question was completely out of the blue. “Probably fall asleep?”

“Come show me,” Cas said, words almost slurred together as he said them in a rush. “If you are just going to sleep there, you may as well sleep here. And you can show me the – proper way to sleep.”

Sam tried not to let his brain get away from him, especially considering that he did not have the stamina or the lucidity to actually do anything. As _if_ Cas wanted him to do anything. Which he didn’t. Want Sam to do anything, that is. “I – shouldn’t Dean be doing that? I mean…” he trailed off, clearing his throat.

Cas frowned at Sam, turning more to his side to face Sam fully. “Why would Dean do so? I suppose he would, if I asked him to, as he is ever-selfless. But I am not as blind to human convention as you and your brother seem to think. This would be – too intimate, for Dean.”

“I thought you two shared a profound…” Sam trailed off, swallowing hard, because Cas was sitting up again, head tilted curiously. “Bond,” Sam finished awkwardly.

“We do. Much like brothers, close kin. He is practically blood-related, in human terms. An angel leaving the mark of their grace on a human builds a deep connection that brings closeness and a feeling of family. Togetherness.” Cas stood, and stared at the bed. “If you would rather not, however – “

That made Sam clamber to his feet, nearly tripping and falling on his face. “I would! I mean,” he stopped when Cas’s head whipped up to look at him. “I mean I – have nothing against it. But you really should take off that coat, and your shoes. It will make you more comfortable.”

Slowly, as if Sam was trying to trick him, Cas shrugged the coat off and hung it off the footboard. Then he awkwardly untied his shoes and set them next to the bed.

Sam himself was in nothing but a t-shirt and sweats, feet bare, and while Cas had been tentatively disrobing the little bit he had, Sam had been turning down the covers. “Alright, so now lay down,” he said, gesturing at the white fitted sheet.

Hesitantly, Cas climbed into bed, which is when Sam noticed his belt. For a moment, he considered telling Cas to remove it – but he’d already asked Cas to get pretty much half-naked, by Cas’s standards, and he didn’t want it to be taken the wrong way.

(Especially when he half-meant it in the wrong way, in any case.)

So he swallowed, and waited for Cas to lie down – again, on his back, arms flat at his sides, staring straight up at the ceiling. Then Sam took the blanket off of his shoulders and spread it over the foot of the bed before crawling in on the other side of the bed and pulling the covers up over the both of them.

“You need to – I dunno, not be a board. Let your muscles relax,” Sam murmured. He wasn’t used to someone sleeping next to him, not anymore, and so it took him a bit of situating before he decided to lie on his back as well, one hand curled up under his head, and the other lightly brushing against Cas’s arm. “You’re too tense.”

“That is approximately the fifth time you have expressed that sentiment, if not the fifth time you have exactly said those words,” Cas grunted.

“Well – ” Sam began, but at that moment, Cas let out a frustrated huff and suddenly twisted, rolling, until he was on his stomach – and half-on, half-off, Sam’s chest.

Sam froze in shock.

Cas’s head was still on the pillow, nose gently pressing against Sam’s shoulder, and Sam’s hand was trapped under Cas’s side, brushing the top of Cas’s left thigh. Cas had his left arm brought up, resting on Sam’s chest, and the lower part of Cas’s left leg was hooked over Sam’s left leg.

“Is this sufficiently relaxed?” Cas grumbled.

“Yeah,” Sam squeaked. Clearing his throat, he tentatively shifted his arm – dragging it across the lower part of Cas’s abdomen, and Sam did _not_ need those types of mental images in his head at this moment, so that he could curl his fingers around Cas’s right hip and let his hand rest there. “Yeah,” he said in a voice more approximating his normal voice. “This is good.”

* * *

 

“Cas, have you seen – oh.”

Dean paused in the doorway of the room he’d put Cas in, looking at Cas curling against Sam’s left side, head pillowed on Sam’s shoulder, and the way that Sam’s face was finally free of the lines of pain that had been there for so long. Feeling oddly proud and protective, he exited the room and went back to putting the items he’d bought away - _quietly_. They both deserved to sleep, after all.


End file.
